St. Mary’s School (ICSE) is bringing the academic year to a close. The academic year of 2020-21 had been a rather unusual one. Children could not come to school physically. They were deprived of all kinds of social interaction. They had to learn virtually for the entire year. The vaccination drive began in the month of January. In some parts of Maharashtra, children were able to attend regular school physically. However due to the surge in the second wave of the pandemic the situation once again has become grim.
The second wave of the pandemic challenges us to follow a lot of things that we were following during the lockdown. The forthcoming days are going to be very crucial. It is going to be absolutely necessary for each and every person to understand that even though the restrictions of the lockdown changes, the social distancing remains.
The war against the pandemic CoronaVirus will continue. It’s a time to retrospect all that happened in the ‘Virtual School’ during the academic year 2020-2021. Although the year had given us fewer opportunities to celebrate, it did not dissuade us. We are happy to share with you some activities the school conducted all through the pandemic year.
FIRST DAY OF THE VIRTUAL SCHOOL
The first day of the academic year began with a Virtual Staff Orientation on Monday, 8th June 2020. The Principal welcomed the staff and briefed them about the online classes. The online classes resumed through Zoom and Google Classroom. To facilitate the students and teachers, a common link for all subjects of a particular class were created for students and teachers to log in for the entire day. On 19th June, the Principal virtually addressed the parents of Class10 with regard to the pending ICSE examination. On 21st June, the staff celebrated virtually the birthday of the Principal.
PARENTS INTERACTION DAY
From 6th July 2020, the school authorities had a regular online Parents Interaction Day for Classes 1 to 9. The school authorities briefed the parents about the nitty -gritty of the online classes. The interaction also gave opportunities to parents to express and get clarification with regard to any difficulties they had faced with their ward’s studies.
VIRTUAL WEBINAR
On 30th July, a virtual webinar was conducted for the staff of all the Jesuit schools. It was conducted by Fr. Charles Rodriguez S.J. It was attended by 300 staff all over Maharashtra.
TEACHERS DAY CELEBRATION
Teachers Day was celebrated virtually by students and parents. The School management and the Parent Teachers Association home delivered a surprise hamper to all the teachers and non teaching staff. The students had organised a very interesting programme on YouTube which made the staff feel spellbound.
STUDY AUSTRALIA VIDEO COMPETITION
St Mary’s ICSE School was given an opportunity to experience Australian education and engage with premier Australian Universities by participating in the Study Australia Video Competition.12 students from Classes 9 and 10, took this opportunity to compete with students across South Asia. Students under the guidance of Ms. Priscilla Pereira and Ms. Sakina Japanwala prepared a short 3-minute video on a topic nominated by the partner institution in Australia. It was a proud moment for St Mary’s as our students Vedant Harlalka and Pratham Shah were personally acknowledged by The University of Western Australia for their hard work and efforts in preparing a quality video, of extremely high standard on the theme “Building Circular Cities”
SILVERZONE OLYMPIAD 2020
International Olympiad endeavors to assess the competency and proficiency of the students in the field of Math/Science/Computers/English at National and International level, every year. Its syllabus comprises of the syllabus of CBSE/ICSE and various State Boards. 61 students from our school participated in the Silver zone International Olympiads of Math/Science/English/Informatics (2020-21). Overall, we have 32 medalists and winners of Silverzone Math, Science, English and Informatics Olympiad. These students have been awarded the Medals of Excellence as they are among the top 500 students in the West Zone of India and are also Class toppers among our school students. More than 9000 schools and 15 Lac students had enrolled from all over India and abroad in Olympiads this year and our esteemed school and students have curved a niche by procuring a place in the top 500 students in the West Zone of India. This project was coordinated by Ms. Mona Soningra.
ONLINE HINDI ELOCUTION 2020-21
The Online Hindi Elocution was held on 1st October, 2020. 84 students from Classes 5 to 10 participated. In spite of time constraints, the Hindi faculty prepared the students well for the Elocution. Thanks to Mr. Sudhir Singh, Mr. Jitendra Pandey and Ms. Sangita Upadhyay.
INTER-HOUSE QUIZ COMPETITION
The Inter-House Quiz Competition (seniors) was held on 26th September, 2020 at 9 am and it was held on the Zoom virtual platform for the very first time. The quiz concluded at 11 am. The quizzing standard of the students was impressive and it was apparent that they were well prepared for it. The online quiz competition was a novel yet wonderful experience for all. The teachers in charge of the quiz were Mr. Alan Menezes, Ms. Sakina Japanwala, Ms. Sharon Tivade and Dr. Jitendra Pandey.
VIRTUAL INTER HOUSE ENGLISH ELOCUTION
The Inter House English Elocution for Classes 5 to 7 was held virtually on Saturday, 5th December, 2020. Each participant recited their poem with great zeal and enthusiasm and it was a treat to hear them. The judges praised the students and guided them on how they could improve their recitation. The English Elocution Competition for Classes 8and 9 was conducted by the English Department, virtually, on 5th December 2020. The participants recited poems and delivered speeches, remotely. The judges were impressed with their choice of piece, clarity and eloquence, even on a virtual mode. The best performers were awarded merits and e- certificates. Thanks to teachers Ms. Nandini Basu, Cheryl Colaco, Zeenat Surka, Priscilla Pereira, Nicola Pereira, Mystica Pereira, Sneha Fernandes, and Mr. Ryan Rodrigues.
ECO-FRIENDLY DAY
On 1st, October2020, the Kindergarten boys made various useful articles using plastic bottles, old newspapers, old cloth etc. A story was read to them and informative videos were shown to the children during the week to inculcate the value of care for nature. This topic also got the little boys to jog their minds to think about ways to save our environment.
NAVRATRI & DUSSEHRA
The virtual and online edition of the Navratri and Dussehra celebrations was as high spirited as always. This festival was celebrated by the Pre-Primary children on 21st October, 2020. The children were attired in traditional wear, which added to the festive mood. The teachers presented an animated version of the significance of Dussehra. They learnt the importance of choosing Good over Evil.
DEEPAVALI
Diwali, the Festival of Lights was celebrated enthusiastically on November 12, 2020. The story of Diwali was narrated to the students through a video. Lanterns and paper lamps were made in class using their creativity.
CHRISTMAS
Christmas festivities lasted a whole week from December 14, 2020- December 18, 2020 in the Pre-Primary section. The celebration began with narrating the story of Christmas through a video. The children made beautiful handmade Christmas décor and were eager to decorate their homes with these decorations. The week ended with fun and entertaining virtual games conducted by the teachers and of course, a special visit from good old Santa added to the merriment of this joyous season, also reminding the boys that Christmas is a season of giving and sharing!
VIRTUAL SPORTS FESTIVAL
The Pre-Primary had their very first Virtual Sports Festival on 30th March, 2021. The festival opened with a virtual torch relay and the Sportsman’s Oath. The Festival was declared open by our Administrator Fr. Arun Lobo, followed by a release of bright colourful balloons.
DIGITAL PERFORMANCES BY CLASSES 3 & 4(2020-2021)
The students were challenged with the task of putting together a digital performance in the fields of Speech and Drama& Music. Mind you, this was extremely difficult, given the fact that everyone’s confined to their homes and there is limited technological scope to succeed. However, the students had overcome these obstacles with ease and the outcome is a very formidable showcase of talent, dedication, respect for the community, teamwork and above all, everyone just having a lot of fun.
Class 4 was given a harder challenge. They had to do something that they’ve probably never even heard of. Perform a Radio Play on video!
GOOGLE CLASSROOM
Google classroom was used by all the teachers to post study material, assignments and facilitate submission of work by the students. The work was corrected by the teachers on the same platform and returned to the students.
DIGITAL REPORT CARDS
Due to the pandemic and online schooling, the report cards of Classes 5 onwards were also digitized. The digitization has made the preparation of results much easier and convenient for the teachers.
REPUBLIC DAY
The Republic Day too was celebrated virtually. The Principal unfurled the national flag followed by an online programme which was streamed on the school YouTube channel.
EDUCATIONAL EXCHANGE
This year, 35 students from Classes 8 and 9 had enrolled themselves for the EUMIND activity. The students belonging to the EUMIND group completed their projects and had uploaded it on the EUMIND website. The topic for the project was “Go Green 3”. Hervormd Lyceum Zuid from Amsterdam was our partner school.The projects were assessed by the international jury. The international jury has awarded the school ‘Save Food’ certificates for good practices. The Eumind project was coordinated by Ms. Cheryl Colaco and Ms.Mona Soningra.
EDUCATE MAGIS 2021
At St Mary’s wish we provide this Global experience to all our students and are glad that many of our students are actively participating paving the way to become responsible global citizens of the future. The Educate Magis projects were coordinated by Ms. Nicola and Ms. Mystica.
ASSISTANCE GIVEN BY THE COUNSELLING TEAM
The school counselling team had online therapies for individuals, families and groups to deal with any issues the family was facing thus affecting the mental health of the child. They coordinated with various therapists to ascertain the progress of the students.
TRAINING AND WORKSHOPS
The staff attended several workshops like: Building Resilience conducted by Dr. Harish Shetty, Learning Disability and Intervention by Ms. Sakina Chhil –Rangwala, Separation anxiety by Don Bosco Prafulta (Ms. Shalu Malhotra), Occupational therapy in the classroom by Dr. RukaiyaHarianawala and Problem solving and Jigsaw technique by Dr. Pramila Kudva.
Over the years, St. Mary’s has grown from strength to strength and is now a leading school in Mumbai city. Academic standards are comparatively high, as shown by our I.C.S.E. board results and our parents are satisfied with the progress of the School and with the way it is managed.
I cannot conclude unless I mention the hard work done by our teachers during the CoronaVirus pandemic. Most of you probably had to work from home. Our teachers too worked from home. In the initial stage, the teachers had prepared lessons for the students and sent them power points, explanations, study material, voice recordings and recordings uploaded on YouTube so that students in Classes 9 and 10 access information. After that it was decided to conduct live online classes in order to connect with each other and the teacher teaching live also had to adhere to a specified time table.
St. Mary’s ICSE is a Jesuit educational institution which promotes values and ethics. The school fosters world-renowned order of educators, the ‘Jesuits’, the flag bearers of the religious order, ‘Society of Jesus’; the value orientation in such an institution is of the highest order. To further the value system in our Jesuit school, we operate as a joint venture of Parents and Teachers who are the basic mentors in the formative years of a child.
Together with Fr. Arun the treasurer, Ms. Clementine Monteiro, the Vice Principal of the secondary section, Ms. Nirmala Fernandes, the Supervisor of the primary section, Ms. Sandra Fernandes, the Supervisor of the pre-primary section, other Jesuit Fathers and Brothers and our teachers, we wish you ‘A Very Happy Summer Vacation!’ May God Bless you all!
This article has been slighted edited to fit this format, to read the full report please follow this link “From the Principal’s Desk 2021”
